Iowa's 175th Anniversary of Statehood
December 21, 2021 3:00pm
A Fiery Preacher
In every generation, moralists worry about the country’s youth. In the 1910s, the famous preacher and Iowa native Billy Sunday (1862-1935) foreshadowed the alarm that would ring out in the Roaring ‘20s. In a 1914 sermon to an estimated 25,000 people during a crusade in Des Moines, he called the tango “the rottenest, lowest down, vilest, filthiest and most corrupting dance that has ever been invented.” If only he knew what was coming.
